“We’re seeing a rebound off some selling that took place recently. The next trend will be set by whatever the employment numbers dictate tomorrow,” said Bill Schultz, chief investment officer at McQueen, Ball & Associates in an interview with Bloomberg.

Yesterday, the markets declined after Federal Reserve Bank Janet Yellen warned about the high equity market valuations. Investors were also concerned regarding the jobs report from ADP Research Institute, which showed that companies added 169,000 jobs in April.

Today, the Department of Labor reported that the number of people who applied for unemployment benefits increased by 3,000 to 265,000 for the week ended May 2. The agency is scheduled to reports its April jobs report tomorrow. Economist estimated that the economy added 230,000 jobs last month.

[drizzle]The Federal Reserve is closely monitoring the labor market and other economic data to determine the right timing to start raising interest rates. The central bank recently considered the slowing of the U.S. economic growth in the first quarter as “transitory.”

Richard Sichel, chief investment officer at Philadelphia Trust Co. said, “The market has been getting mixed-to-negative messages over the last few days. The economic numbers have recently been more disappointing than not, so it makes tomorrow’s jobs number even more newsworthy than usual.”

U.S. Markets

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) – 17,924.36 (+0.46%)

S&P 500- 2,088.00 (+0.38%)

NASDAQ- 4,945.54 (+0.53%)

Russell 2000- 1,224.82 (+0.45%)

European Markets

EURO STOXX 50 Price EUR- 3,556.21 (-0.05%)

FTSE 100 Index- 6,886.95 (-0.67%)

Deutsche Borse AG German Stock Index DAX- 11,407.97 (+0.51%)

Asia-Pacific Markets

Nikkei 225- 19,291.99 (-1.23%)

Hong Kong Hang Seng Index- 27,289.97 (-1.27%)

Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 Index- 4,470.09 (-1.83%)

Stocks in Focus

The stock price of Alibaba Group Holdings Increase 7.5% to $86 per share after reporting a 45% increase in revenue to $21.8 billion. The Chinese e-commerce giant posted a net income of $467 million or $0.18 per share. Alibaba also announced that its COO Daniel Zhang will succeed Jonathan Lu as CEO.

The shares of Whole Foods Market declined 9.47% to $43.07 per share after reporting second-quarter revenue and comparable-store sales that missed the estimates of analysts. The company reported $0.44 in earnings per share on $3.6 billion in revenue. Its comparable-store sales rose 3.6%

The shares of Yelp surged 23% to $47.01 per share due to the report that it is exploring a sale. The Wall Street Journal reported that the online review company is contacting potential buyers with the help of investment bankers.